2020 we can all agree has been a strange year. I ended up back in Ontario after living in Vancouver for about a year - and the Covid-19 pandemic hit the world. I was stuck at my parents home for a bit but for me, it was somewhat what I needed. I think the years before were such a whirlwind of career change, mental health struggles and general stress of living somewhere new it was a welcomed change. I started seeing a therapist which deepened my understanding of my own thoughts and feelings. In a profound way I look at humanity in a very different light. I think the time taken off from everything was a positive for myself - I am definitely one of the lucky ones during this whole pandemic. There are still so many things I need to work on, but putting my head down and getting this new batch ready and done was much overdue - it has been half a year since my last release and these were raw halves sitting here for months.
The 2020 Ultima was machined in February. With all the delays caused by Covid, shipping took a bit longer but once arrived they sat for a long time on my desk. I felt I had lost a lot of the motivation I once had especially when distracted by what was going on in the world at the time. Covid was in full swing - and we didn't leave the house for weeks at a time. I slowly gathered ideas of what I wanted to do. A new website was on the agenda (which you have likely noticed!) and I wanted to answer both customers and retailers cries for more product. As the final run of Ultima I decided to go all out and offer 3 glass dust anodized finishes along side AMS2488 and Ultramatte.
Design wise there is very little that is different about this run than the 2019. The biggest change was removing 1 gram off of the Ultima BTM (Bimetal). I found the 2019 Ultima was too powerful and although it was received positively by customers it was just a bit sluggish for my play style. This time around I sacrificed a bit of stability for more speed and floatiness. Playing with them back to back you can feel the slightest difference. As for the Monometal - the profile and weight distribution is exactly the same. I actually think the Ultima Monometal is the best yoyo I have ever designed, over the Fulvia, but that of course is my personal opinion. You can read the previous blog post about the initial design of the Ultima.
The anodizing was a bit of a struggle this time around. On the 000, I had them laser engraved before hand and it left a very cool "ghost" logo on the edge of a yoyo. Barely noticeable until you looked for it. With my obsession of simple distraction free designs I tried my hand at the same process. I sent the yoyos to the anodizers but unfortunately either the etching process or the blasting process removed the logos except for the AMS2488. With Covid in full swing I decided to leave them bare - a throw back to the Evora and Octavia where at the time I was against any branding on the yoyo itself.
This will likely be the last time I release a competition style yoyo of this caliber. Assembling the Bimetals were a bit of a nightmare. Reaching 5 years now, I also think that the industry has enough heavy hitters for pure performance model yoyos in both titanium and aluminum. Coupled with the fact that assembling these are a nightmare after anodizing (seriously i spent weeks trying to assemble these to get them buttery smooth) and the amount of defective product that I had to reject due to anodizing issues - its the reason why I've only done this a handful of times.
But with the anodizing finish itself - it is incredible. The colors flip flop in sunlight that just cant be represented in the photos. It took me a long time to step out of my comfort zone as far as finishes and colors. For the first 3 years I focused on what I thought was a more "mature" color palette. Pale blues, golds and bronze colors seemed much more pleasant and timeless. After a while - I treated all this as more of fine jewelry instead of what it really is - a toy or creative outlet. When CLYW and I did the Tundra together it let me loosen up with the color choices, but alas that entire run ended up becoming Bgrade due to tolderence issues due to anodizing. Ever since I looked back at those bright colors and wanted to remind myself what all this really was about - having fun with a piece of art.
Also returning is a proper run of AMS2488 - I ran maybe 3 yoyos last year in this finish but for the first time I decided to run a yoyo again due to the sheer amount of angry messages I've received about people missing out on the drop last year. This time I also ran Ultramatte for both Bimetal and Monometal. This is seriously going out with a bang - one of the largest runs I have done in a while in attempt to combat them selling out instantly.
Regardless it's been a crazy wild year. Personally it has given me a break to heal and work on my mental health. I definitely dropped the ball with how long this release has taken but hopefully there is enough for everyone to pick one up, as well as some retailers getting some too. Good luck!
These will be available in both Monometal and Bimetal. Limited quantities
releasing July 7th 2020 at 10pm EST time.
Material: Titanium Width: 43.0 mm Diameter: 56.0 mm Weight: Mono 64.1 grams/Bi 63.0 grams Bearing: Size C Center Trac Response: 19mm LuftPAD Limited with Certificates
It has been a year an a half living in Osaka, crazy how time flies. I remember releasing the Plastic Fulvia just before leaving Toronto, a product that I could argue changed the trajectory of everything. At that moment, Luftverk grew exponentially, with the support of retailers around the world. At that moment, I developed so many behind the scenes processes for management that it became much more of a corporate job then a creative one. Huge projects like Cheatcode, and the CLYW collaboration definitely had its creative sides dont get me wrong, but the addition of moving to a foreign city, learning a new language, pursuing motorsports and delegating tasks behind the scenes with razor sharp margins meant for a lot of it I was on the brink of burnout. I questioned if I even still liked doing yoyo stuff at all, or if it was just to keep food on the table.
Crazy to think it has been 2 years since the original release of the Plastic Fulvia and Plastic 000. Both models as of now are pretty much sold out everywhere, and I knew it was about time to update both with a small batch of new colors as well as fix a few small issues with the first designs. I appreciate everyone who has reached out anticipating a restock of these - as the manufacturing process is very timely for sure so restocks can't happen as quick as I'd like.
In January, I released the AKURA MG, a yoyo made from Magnesium. This material has a very low density and I talked about how it performs more like a plastic than anything else. But what made that yoyo really special is the aesthetic. I loved the lines on that yoyo. The proportions with the chunky rims were just perfect. One of the biggest aesthetic challenges though were that after the ceramic coating the lines were quite subtle which hid the design.
Jeffrey Pang
Author